Creation cancelling credit cards which have been used with a Curve Card

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Creation Financial Services, issuers of the IHG Rewards and (closed to new customers) Marriott Visa credit cards, made a very aggressive move on Friday in its dispute with Curve Card.

It appears that the majority of credit cards which had been used with a Curve Card are being closed.

One call centre agent said that 1,800 cardholders were impacted. We cannot confirm this number.

Creation closing IHG and Marriott credit cards used by Curve Card holders

The closure letter states that cards are being closed on 3rd December.

Based on reader discussions with the call centre, but not confirmed in writing by Creation:

annual free night vouchers on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card will still be desposited if the cardholder spends £10,000 before their card is closed

there will NOT be a pro-rata refund of the £99 annual fee on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card – although you would be free to dispute this with the Ombudsman

If you cannot trigger your free night voucher by 3rd December but would otherwise, you arguably have a case for a full refund of your IHG Rewards Premium £99 fee for the current year.

Why is Creation banning Curve Card holders?

It isn’t entirely clear what is driving this, although I was told by an independent industry consultant that it was being pushed by National Savings.

Curve Card, for those who don’t have one, is a debit card which allows you to recharge transactions to a linked credit card. You can learn more about Curve Card in this article.

This meant – most specifically – you could deposit money into National Savings and have it charged to a miles or points earning credit card as a purchase. Most Curve Card holders had a £9,000 daily limit albeit capped at £1.8 million per year.

Whilst Curve Card had always had blocks in place for payments to banks, there were certain grey areas such as National Savings, HMRC and various investment firms such as Hargreaves Lansdown.

Creation had initially sent out text message to cardholders a few weeks ago saying that its cards could no longer be used with Curve Card. I was told at that time that mass account closures would follow, and here we are.

One problem is that the ban is catching many people who used Curve Card purely for Apple Pay functionality. It was the only way to add your Creation card to Apple Pay.

For clarity …. the free IHG Rewards credit card is still open to new applicants. Creation is not pulling out of the UK and is only closing these 1,800 (TBC) accounts.

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Category

IHG Rewards

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Vin says:

1 Oct1 October 14:17

This looks like a way for Creation to trim the number of cardholders. It’s clear that they don’t like this card any more.

At some point, they will just shut down this card entirely.

I was switching my business from IHG to Marriott anyway.
Jon says:

1 Oct1 October 14:19

I’m definitely frustrated by this. I was using my IHG card under Curve for convenience and haven’t done any NS&I, Money Recycling or anything like that on it.

It really seems like Curve is falling apart, I don’t want to use them with my VS card now in case the same happens.

On the plus side, the Creation customer service is rubbish so at least we don’t have to deal with them.
DI says:

1 Oct1 October 14:21

Lol I only ever spent £25 via curve on my white card.
Yorkie Aid says:

1 Oct1 October 14:24

I just received the letters for the Black and White cards. I am still waiting for my free night voucher which should have posted back in March and I have subsequently earned another one. Assuming that these are not forthcoming, what would be the potential ramifications of valuing them at say £400 each to stay at the ICPL (where I used my last voucher) and leaving an outstanding balance of £800 on the card on 3rd December. Obviously I would write to them to explain why I was doing this and that I would be happy to then pay off the balance when the vouchers are finally added to my IHG rewards account.
- Harrier25 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:26
  
  Then you’d end up with missed payments, followed by a default on your credit file. Not a good idea.
- DI says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:26
  
  Hmmm sounds like a bad idea. Say they give you the vouchers in a few months, how much would the interest be by then? And how exactly are you going to not pay it?
- Dave says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:27
  
  I would settle the bill and then MCOL for the cost of the free night later. Otherwise you’re going to end up with a non-payment on your credit file.
  - Lady London says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 16:09
    
    Yes. And ensure you ask for cash value of the pro rata amount you’d spent towards a free night. Free night could be worth £350-£500 depemding where spent so you’d claim half that amount if you’d spent only £5k towards a free night. Ditto for annual fee they absolutely won’t be able to avoid refunding you pro rata.
    
    The admin on even 10% accrued towards free night claims will unfortunately be onerous for them.
    
    Obvs easier if you give them an opportunity to express any dissatisfaction with you and they don’t before you file the claim.
- Yorkie Aid says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 15:29
  
  Thanks for the advice guys. I’ve got two months to think about it I guess. Hopefully they will just pony up the vouchers before the drop dead date and we can then move on.
- David says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 22:19
  
  Do you really need to ask whether this is a good idea? Sweet Lord.
Tomas Hollingsworth says:

1 Oct1 October 14:28

They’ve saved me a phone call I’ve been meaning to make since the text message last month. Without Apple Pay the IHG card is useless to me.
ChrisD says:

1 Oct1 October 14:31

I wonder how/if IHG will respond to Creation trashing their brand…
- Paul says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:44
  
  I’ve wondered this! It’s not good for IHG/Marriott. I suspect if they are going to continue with a Credit Card in their brand they will change supplier
- Anna says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:56
  
  I was thinking that. I’ll probably send emails from me and my OH pointing out that we will be making fewer hotel bookings as a result of this (paid ones, obviously!)
  - David says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 22:23
    
    How anybody could think this is sensible is beyond me.
- JDB says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 16:07
  
  The IHG Rewards programme has c. 100 million members worldwide. I don’t think they will be too bothered about a couple of thousand disgruntled former cardholders. It is also inconceivable that they were unaware of the account closures prior to them happening.
- Harrier25 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 16:41
  
  IHG do a fantastic job at trashing the brand themselves without any assistance from Creation!
- David says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 22:22
  
  I’m sure they won’t be that bothered with a group of grifters getting this route shut down.
Joints&Piles says:

1 Oct1 October 14:31

I don’t get it. If NS&I don’t like the way Curve was being used they should update their IT to block it, or take it up with Curve.

If Creation don’t like the way Curve is being used because NS&I are having a go at them, they should change their IT to block Curve, or take it up with Curve.

Shooting your cardholders makes no sense. They won’t get the annual fee or the benefit of all the non-Curve transactions in future. They clearly aren’t all that upset with me because they seem happy to let me keep the free card. Once they blocked Curve, what’s the motivation to cancel cards?

Is it to cause trouble for Curve? (I certainly won’t be using Curve any more given a risk of underlying cards being cancelled.)
Is it to avoid having to spend money doing KYC checks on all those cardholders?
Is it because NS&I have threatened to trigger money laundering investigations against Creation in respect of all customers who used Curve, and Creation have agreed to kick everyone out to avoid detailed investigation?
Is it because they don’t understand Curve and consider it a dodgy product only used by people who are probably dodgy and thus likely to do more dodgy things in future?
- FFoxSake says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:52
  
  It’s because Creation want to be out of the UK credit card market.
- jack charlton says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 16:57
  
  “Shooting your cardholders makes no sense.”
  Unless they have just culled a whole lot of people that were costing them money, and if they didn’t cull them, would likely attempt to find other ways to cost them money ?
  - Joints&Piles says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 19:23
    
    That’s possible, but it’s not the cardholders who are costing them anything, it’s Curve. If Creation think those cardholders can outsmart Creation and find tricksy ways to cost Creation money before Creation realise the loophole then Creation have no business issuing credit cards. They’ve happily allowed spending via Curve for years, same as they’ve happily allowed their own card to be paid off with other credit cards. There’s no way they didn’t know about Curve, and I doubt they didn’t know debit card fronting was being used to put cash-like transactions through Creation. They’ve turned a blind eye until NS&I came calling with a threat to stir things up.
    
    My advice to anyone who has used Curve with NS&I
    1) Stop using Curve with any card you wouldn’t want to see cancelled
    2) Spend any Curve cash you have before Curve decide to lock your account
    3) Withdraw all your savings from NS&I before they lock your account for months of KYC checks, which is what I’ve just done even though my NS&I savings are all genuine from the proceeds of property sales
    
    Hopefully this argument stays between NS&I, Creation, and Curve, and we won’t see IHG Rewards shutting down people’s accounts and rescinding points.
    - David says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 22:26
      
      Absolutely this! And some are going to email IHG rewards about having their cards closed!!!
oafcmetty says:

1 Oct1 October 14:35

No letter received here. I was only using Curve on the card when abroad, or for normal spend on rare Apple Pay transactions.
- Jonathan says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 14:49
  
  Wouldn’t get too comfy with the speed of Royal Mail at the moment.